How to renew an SSL certificate

If you are using the free certificate included with your hosting, there is nothing to do — it renews itself automatically. Renewal only becomes something you have to actively manage if you bought a certificate separately for organisation or extended validation, or a wildcard.

Why free certificates renew without you doing anything

The free certificate on your hosting plan is issued for a short validity period and renewed well before it expires, entirely in the background, for as long as your domain keeps pointing at your hosting account. You do not need to request the renewal, approve it, or install anything new — it simply happens. The only way this stops working is if the domain stops resolving to your hosting, which breaks the same automatic check that issued the certificate in the first place.

Renewing a certificate you bought separately

A certificate purchased for organisation validation, extended validation, or a wildcard is issued for a fixed term, typically a year, and does not renew itself. You will usually receive an expiry reminder from the issuer in advance. When it is due:

1. Start before the expiry date, not after. A lapsed certificate means your site is showing security warnings the moment it expires, so begin the renewal with time to spare rather than waiting for the deadline.
2. Generate a new certificate signing request if your issuer requires one. Some renewal processes reuse the existing key pair; others ask for a fresh request.
3. Complete the same validation your original certificate required. Domain control at minimum, plus the organisation checks again if it was an organisation or extended validation certificate — this step is not usually skipped just because you renewed before.
4. Install the new certificate through the SSL section of your control panel, replacing the expiring one, following the same process as the original installation.
5. Confirm the new expiry date is showing before the old certificate actually lapses.

What happens if a certificate expires

An expired certificate produces the same "connection is not private" warning as having no certificate at all, shown to every visitor regardless of how the rest of the site is configured. If your site is showing that warning, check whether it is the free certificate — in which case something has interrupted the automatic renewal, usually a DNS or domain-pointing problem — or a certificate you bought separately that has simply reached its expiry date without being renewed. Why does my site still say "Not secure" covers how to tell the two apart and fix each one.